Jean,
Hiawatha called me on Wednesday afternoon while he was working on this piece.
I tried to convince him that he should call Judy Brewer as well but I suspect
that he did not.
What was interesting to me was that he came up with the idea of asking
corporations like IBM to indicated that they would not advertise on a website
unless the site was deemed accessible - very much like the recent commitment
from IBM regarding privacy policies. I sort of like the idea but did not feel
comfortable providing an endorsement for it. IBM is also a sponsor of Bobby
and I feel that they are responsible citizens. I mentioned the WAI Education
and Outreach working group and mentioned that much planning was already going
into the best way to approach this issue. He didn't think that the issue was
getting enough attention. He seemed impatient and I am sure many would agree
with his position.
He was also having trouble with the distinction between complaint and lawsuit
regarding recent website accessibility problems and wondered when all
corporations would be required to make their websites fully accessible. We
did talk about 508 and the government website issues and I suggested that for
private corporations, a more pressing intranet/internet access issue will
pertain to information and work-related web-based services required of workers
with disabilities who may have reason to expect full accessibility under ADA.
Not much of our conversation made it into the article. Was glad to see the
link to Bobby (www.cast.org/bobby) but thought there should have been a link
to WAI as well.
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Jean Foster
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 1999 11:44 AM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Globe article on Web Accessibility
Hiawatha Bray has written a very positive column in today's
Boston Globe. He seems a little fuzzy on whether or not the ADA
applies to web pages though.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/133/business/Making_Web_accessi
ble+.shtml
-jean-